In the black glass before him, he didn’t see his own reflection. Instead, he saw the flat he’d shared with Kayden in Melbourne.
The night he’d moved out, he’d tossed his clothing into a duffel bag. His thoughts were red with anger, his spirit howling with betrayal. “You’re using again,” he bit out. “And you’re lying to me about it. Again. I’ve done everything I can for you, Kayden.” He straightened. “Do you have a death wish?”
“Of course not!” Her blond hair tumbled around her too-thin shoulders. She wore her old, carefree clothing. A tank top and surfer shorts and bare feet. But there was nothing carefree about her face anymore. Nor anything carefree about his personality. “I had a migraine! You’ve never had a migraine, so you can’t know how unbelievably painful they are. I took just enough to manage the pain.”
“And then didn’t meet your sister for dinner, which is what you told me you’d be doing.”
“I ... went to the beach and caught a few waves.”
“With a migraine?” Whenever Kayden told him she was going to spend time with someone, he’d taken to calling that personto fact-check. Her sister had informed him that Kayden hadn’t shown. At which time, he’d called Kayden, who hadn’t answered. He’d taken off work early and driven home, terrified. He’d found her listening to The Doors records and snacking on a brownie. Her eyes were dull in her head, her voice fuzzed the way it fuzzed when she’d been using.
“You’re overreacting,” she accused.
“No. I’ve underreacted every time before this time. I’m finally getting my response exactly right. I’m moving out.” He zipped his duffel and hauled it onto his shoulder.
“You’ve threatened that before, Sam.”
He stormed past her on the way to the door. “This time I’m not threatening. I’m doing.”
She scrambled after him. “You’ll be back.”
“I won’t.” His fingers gripped the front doorknob. Half of his instincts were begging him to stay. He loved her. The other half of his instincts were ordering him to leave. She’d let pills ruin their relationship. “I can’t watch you kill yourself.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re such a self-righteous jerk, Sam. Throwing a fit because I took medicine for a migraine. Nagging me day and night. I’m so over it.”
“So am I.”
“Then leave,” she’d shouted. “And don’t come back.”
He hadn’t come back.
Wrenching himself away from the window, Sam pulled on a sweater and pushed his feet into boots. Desperate to escape the house in order to escape the memories, he let himself outside and walked deep into the meadow. He drew in breaths of cold mountain air and struggled to calm himself.
To this day, he believed he’d made the wrong decision when he’d left Kayden. At the time, separating himself from her had seemed necessary. Maybe he would have felt he’d done the right thing if she’d gotten clean and moved on with her life. But becauseshe’d died, he’d been unable to avoid the certainty that he’d quit right at the moment when he should have dug in his heels. If he’d stayed, she might have found freedom from Percocet and recovered and lived.
He’d chosen wrong.
He’d screwed up. He’d failed her and himself.
But what he could not do any longer was hang on to his guilt. He’d said good-bye to Kayden the night he’d walked out of their flat in Melbourne. But now he needed to live out that good-bye.
Loyalty formed the bedrock of his personality. For him, keeping her with him by stewing and beating himself up came far more easily than opening his hands and letting her go.
Yet he had to let her go. He had to.
I’m sorryformed in his mind.I’m sorry for the ways I let you down. She’d been incredibly important to him. The joy of her love and the sadness of her death would always remain with him. What had been done couldn’t be undone or changed.
Ultimately, he hadn’t been able to control Kayden. Nor could he control Gen. As much as he wished it was different, he didn’t have the power to save anyone.
The only one he could control was himself.
His chin tilted upward. Hundreds of glittering stars lit the dark night. The sounds of nature sang an eternal song. He could feel God’s nearness, and his muscles began to relax. The chaos of his mind gradually stilled.
He stood for long moments, thinking and praying and shivering.
Since he’d found Gen’s pills yesterday, he’d been raking through his options. He’d remembered his history and considered his future. He’d confronted both God and the isolated way he’d been living his life since Kayden had taken hers.
He’d come to no conclusion....
